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4th July 2012, 12:28 PM | #121 |
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MattusMaximus: yes, and I should say your 'bottom line' was always correct. The text you quote is a little ambiguous but it's consistent with what I'd consider right ;-)
Incidentally my jaw nearly fell off this morning when the BBC posted an article online that got it spot on - it's such a common error it's honestly astounding when the media gets it right! |
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4th July 2012, 12:29 PM | #122 |
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How difficult it is to draw a balance between reading the news about this awesome discovery (like as not) and avoiding the staggeringly ignorant comments of the general public. "So what?" "Why don't these so-called scientists do something useful?" "Why not use the money to feed starving Africans!?" "They don't even know what use this will be - what's the point?"
Thick people - OK. People with opinions - OK. Thick people with opinions - not OK. |
4th July 2012, 12:29 PM | #123 |
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4th July 2012, 12:33 PM | #124 |
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I didn't just mean the bosons or photons or gravitons for that matter. I just meant of all the elementary particles what do you get.
We tend to view solid things as taking up the amount of space that their visible mass occupies. But there's a lot space between the molecules, and a lot of space between the protons and electrons within the molecules and a lot of space between the particles that make up the protons and neutrons and so on. I was just wondering what you'd have left if you squeezed all the proverbial air out of the molecule balloons. |
4th July 2012, 12:34 PM | #125 |
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4th July 2012, 12:37 PM | #126 |
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4th July 2012, 12:42 PM | #127 |
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Thanks, edd
Quote:
And if someone with my level of training and interest can make such errors, it isn't hard to imagine the typical media wonk making them as well. Thanks for helping to put the 'E' in JREF! |
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4th July 2012, 12:50 PM | #128 |
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4th July 2012, 12:56 PM | #129 |
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I think a wonderful way to address these sort of questions/criticism was summed up very well by the director of CERN in this morning's press conference. The last question they took was along these lines, and he answered it beautifully...
Download the press conference here: https://cdsweb.cern.ch/record/1459604 --> go to the 58:38 mark in the video for the question and response. I have transcribed the response below:
Quote:
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4th July 2012, 12:57 PM | #130 |
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This is a massive achievement.
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4th July 2012, 12:57 PM | #131 |
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That space is simply vacuum. So there's nothing to "squeeze out", in that sense.
Or are you referring to simply forgoing the intervening space and putting all those particles together into the smallest volume possible? If so, then I have to agree with the statement above that you're likely moving towards something akin to either a neutron star or black hole. |
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4th July 2012, 01:05 PM | #132 |
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4th July 2012, 01:11 PM | #133 |
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4th July 2012, 01:25 PM | #134 |
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How many zeros? Jabba |
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4th July 2012, 02:01 PM | #135 |
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Can I bet on who will win this/next year's Nobel prize in physics?
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4th July 2012, 02:04 PM | #136 |
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4th July 2012, 02:09 PM | #137 |
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4th July 2012, 02:14 PM | #138 |
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4th July 2012, 02:21 PM | #139 |
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4th July 2012, 02:26 PM | #140 |
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4th July 2012, 02:32 PM | #141 |
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4th July 2012, 03:17 PM | #142 |
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Wouldn't a black hole be a singularity if it were all those particles together in the smallest volume possible?
Are neutron stars the same density as black holes? (I know the BH has more mass unless it evaporates or whatever they do.) Black holes = infinitely dense? Sorry, I know this is all basic stuff but the answers I find on Google aren't exactly the ones I'm asking. |
4th July 2012, 03:27 PM | #143 |
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If you define density for a black hole as mass divided by volume enclosed by the event horizon then black holes have finite density. And they can come in a very wide variety of densities, including as low density as hydrogen gas here on Earth if they are very large black holes.
Both black holes and neutron stars come in a variety of masses. Though neutron stars are subject to more constraints that lead to a lesser range of mass and densities. |
4th July 2012, 03:34 PM | #144 |
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It's simply not a good way of dealing with it. I know it's common to say that "an atom is mostly empty space" but it isn't, really. The electrons in the atom are, in some sense, "filling" all the space in it already.
Why do people say electrons are tiny and/or pointlike? Well, if you hit them with a really short-wavelength probe, you can sort of force them to behave as tiny and pointlike. But an atom isn't doing that, an atom is letting them hang around with long wavelengths. How about all the stuff whereby an alpha particle can "go right through" an atom "without hitting anything"? That has nothing to do with spatial gaps between things, or emptiness, or hollowness---it's just a statement about how strong the alpha/electron interaction is. |
4th July 2012, 03:41 PM | #145 |
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4th July 2012, 03:56 PM | #146 |
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4th July 2012, 04:06 PM | #147 |
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4th July 2012, 04:23 PM | #148 |
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If you're applying the most common definition of volume used to compute black hole density then why aren't black hole density citations a lot closer to zero?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagittarius_A* http://www.sciencemag.org/content/304/5671/704.abstract Neither of those density citations appear to be using a nearly infinite volume for Sagittarius A*. |
4th July 2012, 04:33 PM | #149 |
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4th July 2012, 04:38 PM | #150 |
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4th July 2012, 04:43 PM | #151 |
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4th July 2012, 04:47 PM | #152 |
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Alright. That's rather specialized because, as I've said, that formula has absolutely nothing to do with the spatial volume of the region enclosed by the horizon. It may give an empirically interesting measurement (in fact it's just a rescaling of surface area), but it is not the volume in any physically meaningful sense.
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4th July 2012, 04:51 PM | #153 |
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4th July 2012, 05:03 PM | #154 |
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I'm not in any way contradicting that large black holes can be reasonably said to have low density, since they're actually defined by the horizon and not the singularity. I'm simply saying your conclusion was even more true than you suggested.
Though the singularity itself has no volume, so in the other sense it has infinite density (or very large, since we don't know what happens before that). |
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4th July 2012, 05:26 PM | #155 |
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Okay, sorry. I think in the context of the original question we're having an "I think our minds may be too highly trained Majikthise" moment.
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4th July 2012, 06:25 PM | #156 |
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Is this the article?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-18702455 (This one helped me understand the sigma stuff.) I like this part:
Quote:
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4th July 2012, 07:43 PM | #157 |
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As I see the difference between you, Vorpal in the context of Skeptic Ginger's question ...
Inside the event horizon anything can be regarded as "volume" from our point of view, because out here we're protected from it. In our protected space we can fly around outside the horizon, take GPS measurements to get the volume, weigh the singularity by other means and come up with a density. Our protection guarantees that everything remains consistent with the evidence we're able to gather. No judge will yet provide a warrant to search beyond the horizon. There's a name for this which I've forgotten, but the general principle helps keep me sane. |
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4th July 2012, 08:09 PM | #158 |
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Cosmic Censorship may be the name you're referring to?
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4th July 2012, 08:40 PM | #159 |
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4th July 2012, 08:50 PM | #160 |
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